Written by: Carroll Jenkins on April 17th, 2011


Theatrical Release Date: USA, 1962
Director: Ronnie Ashcroft
Cast: Stanton Pritchard, Harvey Williams, Danise Daniell, Cindy Tyler
DVD released: 2010
Approximate running time: 60 minutes
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Full Frame
Rating: NR
Sound: Dolby Digital Mono English
Subtitles: N/A
DVD Release: Something Weird Video
Region Coding: Region 0 NTSC
Retail Price: $10.00
Synopsis: A hobo finds a pair of shades that show women without their clothes. This is his meal ticket and then some.Remember the ads for X-Ray spectacles in the back of the comic books? Russ Meyer invented the ‘nudie cutie’ genre with The Immoral Mr. Teas (’59), but it quickly became the X-Ray Sunglasses phenomena with the British film Paradisio, and this one. A vast improvement over Mr. Teas, and much more ‘focused’ than Paradisio, Like Wow! is barren of boredom as it presents a bevy of beautiful babes for our bewildered and bedazzled sunglasses bearers to behold. Filmed entirely in color and completely without dialog, this is nevertheless a polished and consistently funny film. There is some narrative from our host hobo hero from time to time, and there are a few stretches of exposition here and there, but mostly this is randy would be Romeos reveling in optical revelations, really. Derivative as it may be, the score perfectly punctuates the proceedings, so the lack of actual dialog need not be a negative.
One of the greatest assets is that the women filmed in the ‘before’ and ‘after’ states of undress actually respond to the reactions of the males – the more they stare, the more perturbed and offish the staid naked young women become. When the males remove their glasses in astonishment, behold, the cuties are clothed again!The DVD:
The DVD-R presentation is mastered from the original 35mm negative and at times is so bright it looks colorized. There is a SWV bug in the bottom right corner, but up a bit. Usually unobtrusive, it occasionally makes its unwelcome presence obvious.
All alliteration aside, this is an adult comedy that really delivers on all counts. Decidedly tame by today’s standards, and innocent even by those of the early sixties, this is a very funny film that can be enjoyed by ogler and ogled alike.

